


It's All in the Cards-Five of Cups Reversed

by mphelmsman



Series: It's all in the Cards [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Other, Regrets, Tarot, Writing Exercise, post-HLV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 16:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4356833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mphelmsman/pseuds/mphelmsman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 of cups upright signals that a person is dwelling upon past regrets to the exclusion of present events. In contrast when this card shows as reversed it signals that the old regrets have been resolved. This clears the way for new endeavors and new opportunities. It can also mean that there are choices on the horizon that the person has not considered before.</p><p>John considers his life and regrets Post-Tarmac</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All in the Cards-Five of Cups Reversed

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Letters from Sussex - Draft](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4147626) by [sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound). 



> This will be series based on cards drawn from a Tarot Deck. Tags will be added as necessary. Knowing me the the rating is very likely to change.

John got out of the car and entered the flat in a state of shock. He had steeled himself for Sherlock disappearing from his life today. No one had really needed to tell him that the mission was supposed to be terminal, Mycroft had looked so grim and Sherlock had said that it would probably would be the last time he and John would talk. Then when he turned the confession into a joke...well John couldn't deny the detective the pleasure of one last shared laugh. It brought back so many memories of shared laughter before.

 

As the plane had lifted off John had been consumed by the memories of his life at Baker Street. A hole ate into his stomach as he considered he'd had a chance, a brief chance of getting back to that era that shone in his memories as the best in his life. The last year had been tainted by so many things; his anger with Sherlock for having fooled him, caught between yearning for the life he and the detective had once had and his responsibility to the woman he married, and that woman's much worse betrayal of him in the form of shooting his best friend. 

 

John stood just inside the doorway, his regrets tearing at him from every side, and wondered if this is what the rest of his life would be.  He watched as Mary moved around the flat as if it were any other day, determinedly ignoring that Moriarty's face had appeared on screens across the country. Also ignoring the fact that John had choices he hadn't had this morning. 

 

He had honestly thought he had made his choice on Christmas day but by the time the helicopters had hovered over the man who had willingly condemned himself for John's happiness he knew that it had been the wrong choice. Sherlock had been so quiet since he had been shot that John had doubted that the younger man even cared what John felt about his marriage or anything. It had just seemed like Sherlock was moving pieces around the board for a game only he could understand. The silence rejected John without words being spoken and he had felt that Mary was really the only person who fought for him.

 

But since Sherlock had killed Magnussen for no better a reason than that he was in the way of John's happiness the doctor had started to reevaluate. He had railed at the detective for taking all choices out of his hands by pretending to die. It had never occurred to him that perhaps this time Sherlock had stayed quiet to fulfill John's wishes and then had thrown himself in the path of whatever would interfere with the path John had chosen. John heard again in his head how the woman that he married but knew  nothing about threatened Sherlock to keep John and he saw in his mind's eye Sherlock throwing his life away so John Watson could have happiness and groaned.

 

"What is it John?" Mary asked absently.

 

"This....isn't right." John said, looking at her face. It looked so concerned but how could he really know. He didn't know anything about her and her masks were good enough to fool Sherlock Holmes; what chance did he have? 

 

"I know, Moriarty is going to make things so difficult." Mary said, totally missing the point. "I mean he might still target you. It might be time to get away from all this; perhaps even go to America."

 

John drew in a sharp breath, "Leave Sherlock alone to face him."

 

"We have a child to think about, John. We can't ask our daughter to begin life under the shadow of a gun." Her tone sounded so reasonable and.... normal it made him grit his teeth. It made it sound like they were just discussing a move to be nearer a good school.

 

"With an assassin as a mother I doubt that a gun in the house will be the least of it."

 

"John," Mary said in measured tones, holding her hands over her swollen belly, "you said the problems of my future were your privilege."

 

John nodded his head and looked down, his lips pulling back in a tight smile that had nothing of joy to it. "Yeah but you see I'm an idiot. Some part of me thought that because you  killed to have me that you were the one who really wanted me." he sniffed, his hands starting to twitch as the enormity of it all settled on him, "Later that night the man who had always called himself a sociopath killed just to give me the life he thought I wanted. I didn't understand then but I think I'm starting to."

 

"Understand?" Mary said tightly as the cold, reptilian look he had seen in Leinster Gardens returned to her eyes. 

 

"That there's a difference between 'I'll do anything to have him' and 'I'll do anything for him' ", John laughed grimly, "I've been so slow." He lifted his head and nailed Mary with his gaze, "Tell me the truth, for once, just one truth. You meant to kill Sherlock that night, didn't you?"

 

Mary's features hardened into stone, "I wouldn't have mourned if he had died. Since he came back you've always had one foot out the door."

 

"Finally! Some truth in this relationship." John barred his teeth at her. "And here's another truth, I stayed with you because I wouldn't dare imagine that someone as extraordinary as Sherlock would want me. " John looked around at their normal apartment and felt about the normal future that stretched in front of him. a life filled with regrets as he watched the best and wisest man he had ever known flow through his grasp as nights of takeaway and chasing through the streets of London became replaced with couples gatherings and wondering every time Mary had a night out if she wasn't going back to her old life. "No.....I won't have it."

 

"John." Mary said in tones more like a scolding parent than a partner, "You are going to be a father."

 

"Yeah, I know, but what kind of father can I be when I do nothing but regret?" John shook his head like he was shaking off a fog. "You know, even when I thought he was dead, I never regretted meeting Sherlock. Not once. But you......I would regret for the rest of my life. That's no way to have a marriage."

 

"You can't be serious? His life......it's completely insane." Mary held her hands protectively on her stomach but her eyes were the eyes of a killer.

 

"It's not ordinary but I was a fool for thinking that I ever wanted that. I've always been afraid of stepping completely outside of what people call normal, always just skirted the edge enough that I could jump back into line. Must have been why I joined the army." He looked up at her as he felt the pain of regret leave his heart finally. "I'm not afraid anymore."

 

"I'll make sure you never meet her." the woman who was John's biggest regret growled at him. "She'll never even know she had a father; just a sperm donor." 

 

"No, you don't get me that way either, Mary or whatever the hell your name is," John said, zipping his jacket up and taking out his cell phone. "Cause the third contact on my list is Mycroft Holmes, a man who could guarantee that you spend the rest of your days in a prison so secret I doubt it even has a name. I mean I think that the only reason why he let a threat to national security like you stay free is that his brother asked him to.....for my happiness." he smiled down at the screen of his phone where Sherlock was still the first on his contact list. "just for my happiness." he mused wonderingly.

 

He picked up his laptop and the backpack he kept a change of clothes in, away awaiting Sherlock's call back to the battlefield. Then he turned to the woman who had sank down to the couch, anger and hatred smearing her features into ugliness, "Now, I'm fairly sure Mycroft has got this place bugged. A Holmes rarely makes the same mistake twice. And you just revealed to the British Government that you would really rather his brother was dead. So I'd say you have only a few choices."

 

"And just what are my choices?" she snarled, the last traces of the mask he had thought he loved fading away.

  
"What information you can trade to him for your continued existence after the baby is born. In the mean time I think I'll find out whether a consulting detective could see himself as a consulting parent." he smiled, his regrets falling away from his shoulders like rain, "I think I like the idea of my daughter being raised by a genius." he said as he walked out of the door, totally unsurprised to see a black car waiting to take him back to the only place he had ever really thought of as home, 221B Baker Street.   


**Author's Note:**

> For reference, I am pulling cards from the Robin Wood Tarot Deck.


End file.
